We Must Be Brave Read online

  He gave a true, delighted smile. ‘I’d probably have asked to telephone anyway. There’s no one in the world who’ll be happier to hear we’ve found Pamela. Apart from me, of course. I’ll speak first, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course.’

  I went back into the sitting room. Selwyn was crouched by the grate in rolled shirtsleeves, mending the fire. ‘It will be very hard for my wife.’ He stood up. ‘I blame myself, as much as anyone.’ He looked up and saw it was me.

  I didn’t enjoy his discomfiture. ‘Oh, Selwyn. You blame yourself, do you? How pointless.’

  He stayed where he was, his face peaked in sadness. The sitting-room door opened and Aubrey put his head in. ‘Mrs Parr, Hester would be so pleased to speak to you.’

  ‘My dear Mrs Parr.’ The voice was deep, tremulous, brimming with tears. ‘I am Hester Browne, Pamela’s aunt, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. You saved her from the bombs!’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t. I just picked her up in the bus, where she was sleeping—’

  ‘Oh, my dear woman. Amelia never wrote back, you see, and they moved, and I never saw that little baby again. Aubrey and Amelia were utterly sundered, though it was the last thing he wanted. He was at sea, you know, and then the war … What’s she like now? Does she still have those round eyes?’

  ‘Yes, she does. She’s very … very ebullient.’

  Hester gave a rich trill of laughter. ‘None of us Lovells ever shut up,’ she said. ‘Not even Aubrey, although what with the war, and his poor hand … Do you have any children of your own?’

  ‘I do not.’ I closed my eyes. ‘And I’m sure Pamela will be delighted to be part of a big family. But she’s …’

  I fought for strength, for some kind of mercy.

  ‘Hello? Have we lost the line?’

  ‘I was saying that she’s been over three years here in Upton, with us.’

  ‘Of course, my dear. It won’t be easy. We must speak again if we can.’

  I endured another bout of gratitude, and rang off.

  I left the men murmuring with their tea. I didn’t care whether they were discussing the Mediterranean theatre of war or pitying me. I climbed the stairs and went into the old dressing room where Pamela was asleep. On her side, one leg flung out behind, the other bent up at the knee, the opposite arm crooked as if holding a baton in a relay. A child flitting into the next room of her life, and I would be gone, hidden by the closing door. She stirred, and blew a bubble, her fist closed around a peg doll that was still clothed in Selwyn’s handkerchief. I pulled it gently away in case she lay on it in the night and woke up. Her fingers jerked and released it. She sighed, and stirred again. I sat down on the bed, with my hand on my chin, watching her.

  Some time later I heard them on the landing, Selwyn showing Aubrey to his room. One of them, I couldn’t tell who, said, ‘Goodnight.’ Then Selwyn came into the bedroom. I heard him move around, preparing for bed. Then he came up the steps into the dressing room and stood in the doorway.

  ‘He’s her father,’ he said. ‘We always knew he might come in the end.’

  When I didn’t move or speak, he went away.

  I undressed quietly and lay down beside her and watched on. She was a hot, industrious sleeper. I pulled the strands of hair from her damp cheek. It was still rounded, like her forehead, and her mouth was pushed out in the usual way, as if about to sing ‘O’. I put my face against the hair at the nape of her neck, breathing in her extraordinary scent, so that it would nourish me in the years to come.

  In the middle of the night I dozed and then my eyes opened again. She was breathing with regular little snorts. I put my hand on her back, for the warmth.

  Selwyn’s leather clock told me it was three, and then four. I liked that clock. It was the clock of an independent man, one who had travelled, who’d seen hot horizons, islands in a glittering sea. The case folded so beautifully into one’s hand, like a leather egg. At five o’clock I sat up, and went silently into the big bedroom. I took a sheet of writing paper from my drawer and began a letter to Pamela. I thought I’d slip it into her suitcase with her clothes. Dear Pamela, I hope that you will keep this letter after you have read it so that you can read it again because I have some very important things to say to you.

  I doubted she would read it again. She was too contrary. She’d make a paper boat of it and float it in the bath. A bath in Ireland, big and cold, with clear brown peaty water pouring from a single flared silver tap. And a great Juno of a woman with tumbling chestnut hair would be scooping the water over her back and her small pale rounded shoulders, trilling at her lovingly. I had no idea what Hester looked like but I felt that only a generously built woman could possess such a rich contralto.

  I carried on writing. Perhaps I could give the letter to Aubrey.

  Selwyn stirred and muttered, and almost immediately afterwards I heard his voice.

  ‘Ellen,’ he said. ‘It’s six o’clock.’

  ‘Mm?’

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The sky was light. I felt light, too, clear-headed.

  ‘I’ve been writing a letter.’

  I heard him sigh. ‘I’d better get up. I’ll see you at eight, for breakfast.’

  19

  PAMELA ROSE INTO consciousness with much lip-smacking, stuck out an arm as if hailing traffic. I grasped her hand and she opened her eyes.

  ‘Mercy me, here you are,’ she said.

  I made myself smile. ‘It’s seven o’clock. And a nice spring-like day already. I thought we’d wear our picnic dresses.’ I was already dressed in mine, a faded grey linen button-down dress with a shirt collar and wide pockets, one of them with an ink-stain but never mind, it was the most comfortable thing I owned. ‘Look,’ I said, holding her dress. ‘Do you remember this one from last summer?’

  It was a simple tunic of sky-blue polished cotton checked in thin white lines. Made out of a full-skirted overall I’d intended to use for cleaning grates and silver, but never had, on account of the fabric being too fine. I had put a trim, a ric-rac of white daisies, around the bottom.

  ‘I don’t like those daisies any more.’

  ‘They’re pretty.’

  She pushed herself upright in the bed. ‘Why does that man want to be my daddy?’

  ‘He’s always been your daddy.’ I put the dress down on the chair.

  ‘No, he hasn’t! How can he be a daddy when I’ve never seen him!’

  I reached out and touched her cheek. She was still hot from sleeping. ‘You saw him when you were a baby. You just don’t remember.’

  ‘Mummy said he didn’t want to be a daddy.’

  ‘Well. I think he did in his heart.’

  She nodded, sombre. I heard the lavatory flush, and then footsteps, first over the landing and then on the stairs. ‘Anyway,’ I continued, ‘now he’s back, and he’s here, and he’ll be expecting to see you for breakfast. It’s lovely for you, to have a daddy.’ In the mirror I saw her get out of bed and pull her nightdress over her head.

  ‘So he can be Daddy,’ she said, when her head appeared. ‘And you can be Mummy.’ She sat down on the floor with her back to me and put her knickers on. Her hair was like a bird’s nest where she’d slept against the pillow. ‘And we’ll all live here with Elizabeth and the hens.’

  I unpinned my hair and started to brush it out. Some of it fell across my face so that her reflection, as she pulled on the tunic dress, was obscured by a golden sort of mist. ‘Oh, Pamela. What about Mr Parr?’

  ‘He’ll be Grandpa, of course.’

  ‘Crack Daddy’s egg for him.’

  The dining room was cool, an early sun edging towards the table. Pamela did as she was told, with concentration, tapping the teaspoon on the top of the egg. Steam rose from the egg and from the teapot.

  ‘Now scrape it out carefully, in big pieces,’ I said. ‘So that Daddy can eat it with his fork.’

  His face was crumpled from sleep and he had a small red cut on
his chin. He watched her wield the spoon, and then looked at me, smiling. ‘May I observe what an absolute pair of beauties you two are.’

  Pamela emptied the egg and put the shell on her plate. ‘Ellen’s more beautiful because she’s got yellow hair, not brown.’

  ‘No, I’m not, Pamela. Your hair is beautiful.’

  Mine was falling around my shoulders. He held my eyes. He had no tie: he noticed me noticing. ‘It’s the one thing. Well, and shoelaces, of course.’

  ‘We’ll see to that after breakfast. Pamela and Aubrey, do please eat.’

  ‘Did you get your cut in the war?’ Pamela raised her hand towards his chin.

  He grinned. ‘No. In the bathroom.’

  ‘But you are still in the war, aren’t you?’ She was making headway into her toast, lips and cheeks now shiny with butter and covered in crumbs.

  ‘I am.’

  She slipped off her chair and came and murmured greasily in my ear. ‘Is it completely bombed off, his hand?’

  I whispered back. ‘No. It’s just a little hurt.’

  ‘Because if it was, we could get Mr Kennet to come and show him a few tricks. How to do things with one hand. Like driving and making fires and so on.’

  ‘I can hear you, Pamela.’ Aubrey was smiling. ‘My hand will be completely better before long.’

  ‘In the meantime you’ll want to work, though, or you’ll get awfully bored.’ Pamela spoke through her munching. ‘You could do a job pressing buttons, couldn’t you? In my book about London there’s a chap who stays in the lift all day going up and down and pressing buttons. You could do that, I expect.’

  ‘Pamela, pop that crust in your mouth, and go into the kitchen to wash your hands and face.’

  She did as she was told. We ate, and I poured him a second cup of tea. The clock struck once, for half-past seven. He lifted up his cup, saying, ‘You’re very good with her.’

  ‘She’s spent almost half her life here.’ I filled my own cup, my hand steady. ‘It was hard in the beginning, in the winter. You must tell Hester that sometimes she’ll go to the bedroom and take a pillow and tie something round the middle, like a dressing-gown cord, to make a person, and then she’ll lay her head on the bosom of this person.’

  The sunlight had reached the table. He sat still, his cup in mid-air.

  ‘There’s no talking to her during this time,’ I went on. ‘No cousins romping on the bed, please. And if Hester has Marmite, she should make toast fingers, and bring them to her after a while. Those will cheer her up. She’ll say they don’t, but they do.’ I stood up, and went to the window and pulled the curtain across, so that the light didn’t shine in his eyes. ‘I’m assuming you’ll be able to stay with them a little, in Ireland.’ I arranged the folds in the thin curtain. ‘That would mitigate the rupture. Not that she’s overly familiar with you, come to that.’

  Outside in the garden a male blackbird jabbed for worms. I turned back to him. ‘When were you planning to take her?’

  ‘I thought perhaps the day after tomorrow.’

  I nodded. Still grasping the bunched, soft linen of the curtain. ‘That would give you time to tell her, I suppose. For her to try and understand the idea, at least. I assume you are going to prepare her in some way?’

  His face puckered. ‘Of course. I just don’t know how to start.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Mrs Parr—’

  ‘Ellen.’

  ‘Ellen, please don’t quiz me like this. Please help me.’

  I didn’t speak. Simply sat down again, but this time on Pamela’s chair, the one next to him. Pamela came in, clean. She climbed onto my lap and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Regarded him, blinking slowly. She hadn’t sucked her thumb in a long time. I smoothed her skirt and mine, and held his gaze. ‘Pamela, you can practise your bows. Daddy’s shoes need tying. Sit sideways,’ I bid him, as Pamela slid off my lap. She kneeled at his feet and pulled the laces tight.

  ‘One loop’s always bigger than the other one.’ She looked up at him. ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘I don’t mind.’

  ‘I could do a sheet bend.’

  ‘There’s not a great deal to do, here in Upton,’ I explained. ‘Selwyn’s been through the book of knots.’

  He grinned. ‘It’s the same with Hester’s children. Deep on a farm, no outings or treats.’

  ‘Is there a family likeness?’

  ‘In myself and Hester, yes. The children take after their father. Rusty hair and freckles.’

  ‘Why is Hester in Ireland?’

  ‘She was a nurse in Dublin. She met her husband at a dance. He’s Church of Ireland, I should say.’

  As if I cared about their denomination. Why was I even asking, when each question brought another lance of pain? I couldn’t manage any more. He seemed to know it, because his voice was very soft. Pamela, chirping in self-congratulation, moved on to the second shoe. Then I said, ‘Have you got your tie?’

  ‘Oh. Yes.’ He hesitated. I could see he’d been going to ask Selwyn to help him with that task. I waited for him to say so, but he didn’t. Instead he leaned to one side, produced the tie from his pocket and held it out to me. It was thin, old, a dark maroon, with a coarse grain. With a single clumsy hand he tugged his collar up, and then bent his head forward. I invested him with the tie and he raised his chin.

  ‘This may not be very expert, I’m afraid.’ My only experience of ties was watching Selwyn, when we were newly married and I lay in bed, in love, while he dressed. Those days were far off now.

  ‘You’ll make a better job of it than me.’ He was smiling.

  I started to make the knot. The fabric slithered through my fingers. A fumbling novice. Out in the kitchen the back door creaked open. I heard Elizabeth say, ‘There’s an egg for you, Mr Parr,’ and Selwyn reply, ‘Splendid.’

  ‘Darling,’ I called, ‘help us.’

  Selwyn came in, grinned, finished the job. ‘Where’s Pamela?’ he asked, when Aubrey had thanked him.

  She stood up. ‘I’ve just been lacing those big shoes.’

  We all laughed a little. ‘Ah.’ Selwyn sat down. ‘Good morning, Pamela. How helpful. You made a good breakfast, I hope.’ He turned to me. ‘Darling. Look at your hair in that flowing style. You look positively Pre-Raphaelite. And Pamela. What a pair of beauties.’

  Aubrey smiled. ‘That’s what I said.’

  Elizabeth came in with Selwyn’s breakfast. ‘I can’t answer for the egg, how hot it is any more,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be perfectly good.’ Selwyn glanced at me and then at Aubrey.

  ‘Pamela,’ I said, ‘will you go upstairs please?’

  To my mild astonishment she did exactly as she was told.

  ‘When are we going to tell her?’ I said, when she was out of earshot. ‘We can’t just leave it, and leave it. She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand she’s going.’

  Aubrey stiffened at my wild tone.

  ‘Perhaps you could introduce it into conversation,’ Selwyn said. ‘Gently, without scaring her.’

  ‘She’ll be upset whatever you say.’ I faced Aubrey. ‘She will. She’s known you for a space of hours, and she’s to go to Ireland—’

  ‘London, actually, first. I need to go to London. Tomorrow.’

  ‘The day after tomorrow. You said she’d go the day after.’

  ‘I’ve changed my mind.’ His mouth twisted with the unpleasantness of his duty. ‘Look, Mrs Parr, I have to be honest. I won’t be going to Ireland. I can’t travel to a neutral country. I’m not allowed. And as I’m sure you’re aware, living so near the coast, all routes are going to be shut down soon, for the invasion. So I’m going to London, where I’ll hire a nanny, a proper registered person, to take her immediately to Ireland.’

  ‘You’re not even going to take her yourself?’

  ‘I’ve just explained that I can’t.’

  We stared at each other. My face flamed. Selwyn’s hand enclosed mine. I looked away from Aubrey and down at Selwyn
’s hand. My eyes were glassy with tears but I wouldn’t let them fall. Inside me a fortress crumbled.

  There was a thumping on the stairs. Pamela’s voice came, a great shout, as if we were two hundred yards away. ‘Ellen! I can’t find Popsy! She was in my bed and now she’s gone! Where’s Popsy?’

  Popsy was a peg doll. Perhaps the one I’d prised from her hand when she was sleeping. Aubrey rose to his feet. ‘I’ll go and help her. See if I can’t tell her. Start, at least.’

  Selwyn and I remained a few moments more at the breakfast table. I sat silently while he tried to piece together a last day for Pamela. We would all go to church, it being Sunday, and then I’d take Pamela to say goodbye to Lucy while Selwyn showed Aubrey the mill. ‘He might enjoy seeing the turbine, I suppose.’

  He spoke unsteadily. I took his hand.

  ‘After lunch you could take Pamela to Upton Hall,’ he went on. ‘Bill Kennet needs to see her, and Althea. In fact we could all go to the Hall for tea. Do you think that would be nice?’

  His fingers tightened on mine. I couldn’t answer for the tears raining down my face.

  Pamela appeared, wearing her straw hat. I spoke to her in a soft voice. ‘Did Daddy tell you about Ireland?’

  ‘Mm.’ She tipped her hat at her reflection in the hall mirror, swung away, turned back, tipped her hat once more. I realized she was trying to do it the way William Kennet did.

  ‘Mm, he did, or mm, he didn’t?’

  ‘He did.’

  She brushed past me and went out of the front door.

  Lucy had a dark-blue beret slanting over her forehead. It suited her, made her sallow face and black eyes more dramatic.

  ‘You should wear that more often,’ I told her as we went through the lychgate of the church. ‘You look quite dashing.’

  ‘You’ve bin cryin.’

  ‘Thank you for pointing it out. Pamela’s going tomorrow.’